


Play Fighting

by Just_Another_Day



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Awkwardness, Cluenessness, Dumb Boys Being Reckless, Fluff, Implied Teenage Crushes, M/M, Pining, Post-injury, Pre-Canon, Stubbornness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 03:41:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20203123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_Another_Day/pseuds/Just_Another_Day
Summary: Damen refuses to quietly let everyone, especially his best friend, keep treating him like he's fragile now.





	Play Fighting

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 'Play Fighting' square of my Fluff Bingo (can you tell that I didn't know what else to title it, lol). Takes place when Damen is 13. Could be read purely as gen if you prefer, since it's a Damen-centric piece more than anything, but there are definite hints (and authorial intention) of something a little more developing between the boys.

"Not again," Damen said. It came out in a huff. He tried to pretend that wasn't almost as much from shortness of breath as from annoyance.  
  
Barak narrowed his eyes at Damen. "Is that a complaint?" the swordmaster asked.  
  
"No," Damen answered, though he drew the word out in a way that must have made it obvious to a man as intuitive as Barak that Damen definitely meant 'yes'.  
  
The excuse Barak gave was: "So I'm to believe that you don't think you need to work on your balance? Practice, practice, and more practice is the only way you're going to adjust to that half a foot that I swear you've grown since just the start of the season; right now, you look more like a newborn foal wobbling about trying to find your legs than like an accomplished fighter."  
  
Damen really doubted that was even close to true. People openly and without prodding remarked on what a natural athlete the young Prince Damianos was for good reason, after all. Though admittedly it was hard to dispute Barak's words on that basis alone when those comments were now out of date, based on Damen's performance from before he'd gotten far into his growth spurt, since there had been absolutely no opportunity for anyone to see Damen fight in ages. And even if Barak's words were just baseless insults, Damen still knew better than to continue arguing with him. That would be a good way to ensure that the scope of Damen's training ended up even further reduced. Damen would probably spend the next year just running laps around the periphery of the palace. Presuming he would even be allowed to do _that_. The way things were going, Barak could easily declare even that to be 'too strenuous' for Damen.  
  
So unless he wanted to make things worse, Damen could only grit his teeth and follow Barak's instructions, comparatively pointless as they might seem.  
  
Barak watched with crossed arms and narrowed eyes as Damen went through the exact same footwork drill _again_. He was acting as if Damen hadn't already had it perfectly down by the fifth attempt, let alone the twenty-seventh. Doing what Barak called 'building muscle memory through repetition' was one thing, but Damen knew that necessity wasn't the real reason why Damen had been stuck only doing these types of exercises and nothing more for weeks now.  
  
Either Father had specifically told Barak that Damen wasn't allowed to face an actual armed opponent again, after what had happened the last time, or otherwise Father had given Barak leeway to make that call for himself. Either way, it had been made very clear by this stage that the decision of when that state of affairs might change really wasn't going to be left up to Damen.  
  
This level of caution was pointless. Damen was absolutely _fine_ now. He didn't know why no one else could apparently see that. The wound on Damen's side had closed over and was fading from red to pink. It would eventually pale even further in the manner of the scars many soldiers wore as signs that they'd survived strong opponents. But instead of being a source of pride in that way, Damen's mark apparently stood only as evidence that Damen was too damaged now to be allowed to even stand across from an opponent, let alone to clash swords.  
  
Damen had thought being handed live steel meant he was being accepted as being a man. Instead, he was now being treated more like a useless child than ever. It was endlessly frustrating.  
  
At least Damen knew there was still one person who surely wouldn't say no if Damen asked for a fight work out that frustration, and to keep in practice. Or rather, one person who _would_ say no, but who would ultimately let Damen convince him anyway.  
  
"I'm going to be the one who gets in trouble for this, aren't I?" Nikandros asked later that afternoon after lessons had ended as Damen, grinning, shoved a stick into Nikandros's hand in place of a sword. He would have preferred to have swiped a real practice sword from the ring, but Barak would have noticed and reported it to Father if he had. Besides, this was still better than the complete dearth of actual weapons training Damen had been suffering through. And it brought back fond memories of when he and Nikandros had done their level best to re-enact the tournament fights when they'd been still too young to have even started formal lessons.  
  
"Come on. We're not going to get caught."  
  
Nikandros's disbelieving expression spoke loud and clear of the dozens of other times Damen had said exactly that, only to be proven wrong.  
  
"Well, it'll be worth it even if we are caught, anyway," said Damen. "Don't you want to watch me beat Kastor the next time I fight him? I'm not going to be able to do that unless I start practising again as soon as possible, am I?"  
  
Damen knew he was a little unfairly playing on Nikandros's lingering anger towards Kastor for hurting Damen. Nikandros clearly knew it too. Even so, Nikandros sighed and brought the long piece of wood up into position.  
  
The impact of their sticks against each other was jarring – proof that Damen was woefully out of practice with this kind of thing – but the first few experimental thrusts and lunges didn't pull painfully at anything, so Damen was quick to throw himself into the fight with abandon, his teeth bared in a grin.  
  
It had been less than three months since his last fight, but still, Damen really had missed this. Not just fighting in general, though that had been the main thing that had prompted Damen to seek this out in the first place; he'd missed doing this with Nikandros in particular. He didn't like how Nikandros had been so tentative with him since his injury, acting as though Damen was too fragile to even _touch_, let alone spar with. Damen didn't want Nikandros of all people to shy away from him like that, no matter what the reason. This was so much better.  
  
Damen wasn't about to admit that the endless footwork training he'd been put through recently might have had some notable benefit. But there was something to be said for how – despite the month he'd recently completely wasted sequestered away on bedrest when the wound in his side had kept reopening at the slightest movement – Damen had somehow still managed to improve enough that he stepped around Nikandros's 'sword' and inside Nikandros's reach with more ease than Damen thought he would have demonstrated the last time they'd sparred like this. Nikandros had fairly quick reflexes himself, though, and switched from swordplay to wrestling in the space of a breath, trying to drag Damen to the ground and to get Damen's stick out of his hand without getting hit by it.  
  
It didn't quite work out well for either of them. Instead, they ended up sprawling half on top of each other on the ground, a mess of limbs. It only devolved from there until Damen lost track of which of them had the other pinned. Nikandros yanked on Damen's arm, trying to force his face into the ground. His shoulder protested. As did Damen himself.  
  
"Ow," Damen said.  
  
That seemed to instantly sober Nikandros. "Does it hurt?" Nikandros dropped his grip on Damen's arm to allow his hand to instead fall to rest against Damen's side, pressing ever so lightly. After a moment, Nikandros pulled his fingers away and turned them towards his face, studying them at length, as if he weren't convinced at first glance by his eyes telling him that those fingers weren't now stained with Damen's blood.  
  
It shouldn't have been surprising; the wound was healed, or close enough to it. Why couldn't anyone seem to understand that? But that didn't seem to stop Nikandros from looking worried. Seeing that made Damen feel odd.  
  
"I'm fine," assured Damen. "Just because I got hurt once doesn't mean I'm going to break that easily now. I'm not weak."  
  
"Of course you're not. You're the strongest person I know."  
  
Damen blinked, gratified as much as surprised.  
  
Nikandros seemed less pleased at his own words, grimacing and averting his face slightly as if he'd said something distasteful rather than a compliment. He quickly untangled himself and pushed his body up and away from Damen. Damen frowned. He caught himself nearly reaching out to grab Nikandros before he could disappear from Damen's space. But that would have been silly. Damen had no legitimate reason to want to stop Nikandros from getting to his feet if he wanted to do so.  
  
Damen didn't like ending the bout so abruptly and on such an oddly discordant note. So he was glad that Nikandros then very pointedly held out his hand in an offer to help Damen up. Damen didn't actually _need_ the help, of course, but it felt right to grasp Nikandros's hand after a well-fought match.  
  
"Go again?" Damen challenged, even though he was probably too tired for it, hoping another match might break the remnants of whatever the strange tension still half-hanging between them was.  
  
"Maybe tomorrow," Nikandros said.  
  
"Maybe?"  
  
"Fine. Yes, we'll do this again tomorrow if you want to. As long as you're really not injured."  
  
Good. That was good. Though Nikandros still sounded hesitant in a way that Damen didn't like.  
  
Damen thought he knew a good way to fix it. He took his chance to loop his arm around Nikandros in some melding of a hug and a headlock. Nikandros's face seemed to redden slightly even though Damen knew he wasn't cutting off Nikandros's air supply the way that Kastor had done when he'd demonstrated a similar move on Damen. But Nikandros's face did eventually seem to relax back into something approaching normality when Damen took advantage of the grip to mess Nikandros's curls up before Nikandros could shove Damen away.  
  
"You're the worst," Nikandros complained as he tried to pat his hair back down. But he let Damen's laughter infect him, prompting a slight chuckle out of him. It was such a relief to hear it.  
  
The laughter didn't last for long, though, for they practically ran headfirst into Barak the moment they moved to head inside from the courtyard. His face suggested that he knew exactly what the two boys had just been up to, and that he was unimpressed.  
  
Nikandros moved to speak, probably to apologise, or to defend Damen.  
  
Barak cut him off. "Go home, Nikandros."  
  
Nikandros seemed unwilling to leave Damen to Barak's mercy, even when Damen nodded to confirm that he'd be fine to handle this on his own. Nikandros did take Damen at his unspoken word in the end, but it didn't escape Damen how he took one last lingering look back over his shoulder, as if looking for the slightest sign that he should change his mind and hurry back to Damen's side. And there was that worried look that made Damen feel so strange again.

Damen waved both the feeling and Nikandros himself away.  
  
"You're not going to tell Father, are you?" Damen asked Barak.  
  
"I should," said Barak. "Clearly you're aware that you were doing something you shouldn't have been. And you did it anyway, intentionally."  
  
Damen's mind flashed back to Nikandros speculating about who would get the blame earlier. He pointed out, hopeful that it would be enough to stay Barak's tongue, "You'd be getting Nikandros in trouble as well. Probably more trouble than me."  
  
"You should have considered that before you roped him in, then, shouldn't you?"  
  
Damen _had_ considered it. He'd done it anyway. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. But he wasn't about to say any of that. It would only make things worse, if he knew Barak at all.  
  
Maybe Barak knew what lines Damen was thinking along anyway, though, for Barak said, "You know, I hope that someday, preferably before you become King, you learn that you shouldn't use a man's devotion purely for your own gain. I think you know by now that that boy has no solid defences against you. You shouldn't take advantage of that."  
  
Damen didn't mean to take _advantage_ of Nikandros. What a stupid thing to suggest. And Damen didn't like the weird way Barak said any of that, either. It made Damen vaguely uncomfortable, even if Damen couldn't really describe why.  
  
Barak said, "I won't tell the King. Not this time. But perhaps next time you should worry less about how to avoid punishment if you get caught and more about avoiding re-injuring yourself. And you should also think of how your friend would feel if you did get hurt, considering it would have been at least partly his fault."  
  
No, it wouldn't have been, Damen wanted to protest. Damen was the one who wanted to spar, and who'd talked Nikandros into it. The blame would have been solely on him. Though whether Nikandros would have seen it that way might have been a slightly different matter, Damen supposed.  
  
Damen understood what he needed to do, then. It wasn't that he should have to stop sparring with Nikandros. He'd enjoyed getting back to that too much to want to give it up so easily when there was another way to avoid the potential negative consequences that Barak was talking about. Instead, Damen should just – along with doing a better job of ensuring that they weren't seen by anyone who would report them – make certain that Nikandros understood that if something _did_ happen to Damen, then Nikandros should place the blame firmly on Damen's shoulders where it belonged.  
  
Damen didn't anticipate that it would be a particularly hard sell, somehow.  
  
"I'll be more careful," Damen promised Barak, and very specifically didn't elaborate on what he'd be careful to do.  
  
Even though Barak seemed grudgingly willing to leave it at that, and even though it wasn't _precisely_ a lie, Damen still got the feeling that Barak knew what Damen meant. Apparently, according to absolutely everyone who felt free to comment on such things, Damen was terrible at not openly broadcasting his every thought and intention. Damen supposed he should probably work on that. Maybe.  
  
He'd consider it after he'd worked more on mastering his swordplay, Damen decided.

**Author's Note:**

> This was an odd meandering sort of piece that chose for itself where it wanted to go. Hopefully you all felt like you got a somewhat coherent story out of it. <3


End file.
